The good news about Charlie's Angels is that it is not as bad
as people expected. There were reportedly seventeen writers used on the
film (filming began before there was an ending written), many women rejected
the role of the third angel before Lucy Liu came on, and there were rumblings
of discontent amongst actors during production. The bad news is that all
these factors are still evident in the final product. The important thing
is that everybody who was part of Charlie's Angel's recognized
immediately that this entire movie is essentially a joke. A tongue-in-cheek
attitude pervades the entire movie and keeps it watchable (well, barely).
Any attempt to take anything in this movie seriously would make the final
product absolutely laughable, not in the way the makers wanted.

A ridiculous plot revolves around stolen voice recognition software that
would allow a user to pinpoint someone else's location over the phone,
anywhere in the world. Natalie (Cameron Diaz, Being
John Malkovich, Any Given Sunday),
Dylan (Drew Barrymore, Never Been Kissed, Ever After), and Alex
(Lucy Liu, Shanghai Noon, Play It
To The Bone) must rescue the inventor of this software (Sam Rockwell,
The Green Mile, Galaxy
Quest) from rich businessman Roger Corwin (Tim Curry, Sorted,
The Rugrats Movie). For a movie with so many writers, there is very
little original material. Every plot twist is transparent, and for those
who are of a slower persuasion, the film spells everything out multiple
times to hammer the point in. Diaz, Barrymore, and Liu seem to be having
fun with their roles, so no harm there, aside from the setback to women's
rights. But it would be nice to see Liu play a role other than that of
a vamp.

Oddly enough, the best roles go to the men. Bosley (Bill Murray, Hamlet,
Cradle Will Rock), Natalie's boyfriend
Pete (Luke Wilson, Committed, Soul Survivors),
Tom Green (Road Trip, Freddy
Got Fingered) and Matt LeBlanc (Ed, Galaxy
Quest) are the most enjoyable to watch, possibly because they
are on screen for such a short amount of time. Murray's dry, sardonic
wit is a nice change of pace from the nonstop sensory assault, and Green
is just, well, Tom Green. John Forsythe, the voice of the original Charlie,
also returns. But acting is not really the point for Charlie's Angels.
People are secondary to everything happening on screen.

Apparently, Director McG (full name Joseph McGinty Mitchell) thought
that if he could distract the viewer, they would overlook Charlie's
Angels' shortcomings. The movie is a continuous music video (McG
is a music video director) with jiggling breasts and assorted other cheesecake
shots, flowing hair, gravity defying stunts, and loud music. And never
before has so much been so boring. The movie never slows down long enough
to develop any plot or character, which may be a good thing since any
thought about the story may just aggravate people. Take away all the slow-motions
shots and the running time would be much shorter (and more bearable).
Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon (Men In Black) and John August (Go)
get screen credit for writing the movie, and look for every excuse to
put the Angels in various settings in skimpy skintight outfits. The sad
thing is that most likely Charlie's Angels will make millions of
dollars, spawn a franchise and lesser imitations.